Special Snowflake Studio and Supperclub is a collaborative venture that produces exhibits, installations and events that crisscross the rubrics of art, science, culinary history, social anthropology, esthetics, phenomenology and things that can be called both beautiful and strange.
Our projects support crowd sourcing, urban foraging and foods that are organic, heirloom, humane and sustainable. We aim to connect with bright spirits who are game for something thoughtful and somewhat theatrical.

Monday, December 16, 2013

"Ampersand—evil connector ... or zen koan?"—Amanda Palmer intro to "Ampersand," performed at the IPRCWhen I'm working with people, I always ask for prompts or themes that will help guide what we put together. In this case, the theme was, "We Are the Media &." This phrase exemplifies the spirit of the fans that raised over a million dollars for Amanda Palmer's crowdsourcing campaign to fund her post Dresden Dolls album, galvanizing people to donate a record $1.2 million, the most money raised for a music project on Kickstarter. She has this idea that when you connect with people and ask for help, that people will want to give. Please see her performative and really lovely talk on this subject about both her ardent fan base and her description of the vulnerability and beauty of asking via her TED talk, "The Art of Asking." To read a critical opinion of Ms. Palmer's call for unpaid volunteers to perform as opening acts on her tour in the wake of her wildly successful kickstarter campaign, please see the New Yorker blog.Inspired to think further about "We are the media &," I connected this idea to political protest and
the powerful role that social media can play. So the menu for this event was inspired by
countries where this has been important—for instance, Egypt—and also by places
where social media is banned; this includes China, Myanmar and Ethiopia. For people in the U.S., social media can exist as entertainment, simply a fun and easy way to connect. It's important for me to remember that in some countries, social media is a powerful community builder that is suppressed by government officials who fear protests and dissenting voices. Food is a great medium to promote this conversation—it can be delicious, inviting and also provocative. In the tradition of Lawrence and Anna Halprin's RSVP Cycles, a menu is a score for an interactive experience, a dynamic exchange between the composer/author/artist and the audience/auditors/eaters. We are always thinking about how to invite conversation, and we are very fortunate to have such a muse for this occasion. Cheers to you, AFP!

Menu:

Indonesian-spiced rice with watermelon radish

Pickled seaweed

Javanese pickled carrot, cucumber and shallot with
turmeric and ginger

Soy and citrus sauce

Candied fish, salmon roe and flying fish roe

Dates, chorizo, cheese

Dates, warmed and salted

Fried chickpea terrine with cumin salt

Muhammara—roasted red pepper and walnut dip

bread crisps

Seared steak with shiso

Farm cheese withharissa-North African
chile sauce

Farm cheese with za’ataar – sesame, sumac and oregano
spice mix

White bean dip with pistachio and parsley pesto-

Coconut balls with green tea cashew cream and goji berries

Cocoa nib chocolate cookies

Sheep’s milk yogurt cake with caramelized pink lady apple

Listen to Amanda Palmer's into to "Ampersand:"

Listen to a few playful chords of her "Freebird" cover:

Resources:

Cradle of Flavor﻿: Home Cooking from the Spice Islands of
Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore

Unknown to many...common foods on our supermarket shelves are products of mutagenesis where scientists in a laboratory bombard seeds or plants with radiation—such as with cobalt-60 or gamma rays—to induce mutations. The Cobalt 60 bbq sauce highlights five key mutagenic supermarket foods: Rio Red Grapefruit, Milns Golden Promise Barley, Todd’s Mitcham Peppermint, Calrose 76 Rice and Soy. The recipe is a blend of old and new food technologies: an ancient Aztec/Mayan recado replete with a variety of chile and aromatic spices that is then combined with supermarket mutants to produce a sauce that is deliciously didactic. For more pictures and information, please see here and here.

Oh wow, we've been so busy—August/September in Lisbon developing menus and training culinary students for an installation at a seventeenth-century palace for the architecture triennale—please check out snowstudio and see here and here for more pics.